Identification of disulphide bonds in the refolding of bovine pancreatic RNase A

Background: Comprehension of the rules that govern the folding process is still far from satisfactory, though it is nevertheless clear that all the information required to define the folding is encoded in the amino acid sequence. In proteins that contain disulphide bonds, folding is associated with disulphide bond formation. Protein species with different numbers of disulphides tend to accumulate during the process; these species can be trapped in a stable form, by quenching any remaining free SH groups, and then characterized in order to identify the disulphide bonds formed. Results The refolding pathway of reduced and denatured RNase A has been studied using mass spectrometric strategies …